


Rules Set : Factory Settings

by 4persephone



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, Kanan Jarrus: The Daddening, On the way from here to there, Post-Episode: s03e21-22 Zero Hour, You're not over protective, post Atollan Evacuation conversations, when the kid clearly needs it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 10:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11553189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4persephone/pseuds/4persephone
Summary: On their way Yavin 4 in the aftermath of the Season 3 Finale Evaculation, Kanan discovers his Padawan's choice of resting location is perhaps less inconsequential than initially thought.





	Rules Set : Factory Settings

He doesn't know why but even after those first few reassuring words about their future, Kanan finds himself reluctant to leave his Padawan alone in the quiet room - gazing out through the viewports at the vista out in front of them, even though he also knows there are a hundred other duties waiting for him outside at present. The Ghost is an overloaded Ark right now – crammed from wall to wall with the tired and shell-shocked refugees from their flight from Atollan. Most are still more than half way amazed to be alive at this point, and more than a few are currently fighting injury, grief, fear or exhaustion. All are, unsurprisingly, looking with uncertainty toward the long days and weeks of work that lie ahead.

Hera is - as ever, in the cockpit of the Ghost: Chopper and Sabine are with her there as well, no doubt bringing her requested supplies as needed or helping make minute adjustments to help stabilize the ship's currently overstrained filtering systems. They can go awhile longer at least without help from Ezra or from him.

Zeb is with Alexsandr Kallus – who needs a little physical and mental triage of his own given the circumstances. From what Kanan had sensed the last time he'd seen them together, Alexandr Kallus and Garazeb Orrelios are finally, *finally* about to have a months delayed and no doubt desperately needed conversation, and if it all goes as Kanan expects it will then bluntly stated Ezra might be bunking with Kanan at least until the Ghost's Crew reaches their new permanent quarters at Yavin.

For the first time in longer than he wants to admit, Kanan Jarrus' family is all in one place again…what's more they're alive, together and reasonably intact but Kanan, for reasons he's not entirely able to vocalize, can also sense that the Force is actively prodding right for his attention. Telling him to slow down, telling him he's missing something important. 

Ezra for example: The teen is quiet right now -so very, unnaturally, persistently quiet. His force Aura is muted ...locked down and hidden away from any normal viewing. What he can pick up from the boy from behind his careful shielding is something dangerously close to despondency. The war is taking ever bigger chunks out of all of them, Kanan knows that, but this is more somehow. This is here and now. This is the inescapable sense that whatever's wrong needs immediate active repairing.

Not that he's not proud of Ezra...Not that he's criticizing. Of course, he's proud, how can he possibly not be.? The seventeen year old has taken on so much, become so much, survived so much in the past eighteen months, it's incredible to contemplate truthfully.

That doesn't make the kid any less a semi-cynical (ex?) street rat who's barely halfway through his teens.

Seventeen is young. Kanan knows that better than most. Young enough to falter - to doubt one's place and overestimate one's personal culpability for the burdens of the world around you. It's certainly young enough to lose perspective on occasion -to get so caught up in the needs of the here and the now that you fail to grasp your actual vs perceived responsibilities to the rest of the universe.

Teenagers - all teenagers, no matter their histories, need proper emotional grounding not to get overwhelmed or lose perspective. It serves them both well for him to actually remember that fact more often... to help the kid remember that actively when there is a need. Praise is such a simple strength to give. Ezra and Sabine had done well today. Better than well really; their arrival and destruction of the Imperial interdictor had marked the line between survival and complete annihilation of the remaining fleet…but the teenager in front of him still doesn't have the maturity or wisdom to grasp what they'd actually managed to accomplish – he sees only the future he'd hoped for less than a week ago crumbling like a castle of sand at his feet. That loss - that bleed of hope, is gutting the Kid at the moment. Or rather it will without some careful intervention.

Kanan's learned enough after all this time to realize that his Padawan's at his most vulnerable when Ezra's feeling either guilty or helpless. What's more when he's feeling both guilty and vulnerable? That's when he's at his most dangerous...his most susceptible to dark. So Kanan stay where he is for a few more minutes - deliberately just sets his feet.

Which is why, seven or so minutes later, he both hears and feels his Padawan's careful shift forward in order to shut down something on the panel in front of him, and notes the grunt of pain he'd have missed had it not been for their current closer than typical proximity. "Ezra…" He steps forward, hair raising at the back of his neck. Ezra shifts again, this time inhaling like he intends to speak but losing whatever words he may have spoken in a soft pained huff of air instead. The boy's third shift in his seat is accompanied by a low whine and something that feels a hell of a lot like agony.

Ezra, when he finally speaks, sounds a strange mixture of embarrassed and defiant. "I'm fine. Really. I may have just...uh…out on the interdictor, I may have banged up my right side a little unintentionally." And the walls in the teenager's shielding thin with the words, albeit very reluctantly.

Kanan instinctively takes the small opening offered -and almost instantly regrets it. The discomfort his Padawan is feeling when he breathes deeply-muchless moves -is enough to make him pale and grit his own teeth. Ezra is a lot of things, but fine isn't anywhere on the list. "...Hera said you and Sabine were both all right," He growls, already moving around from behind the chair as he speaks, hands reaching out to touch, to trace… to try and make any kind of sense of the new bursts of sensory information he's getting, not to mention to push back as much of the physical pain in his Padawan as he possibly can. He's honestly confused, though, how he and Hera had managed to miss this level of injury for so kriffing long. He knows that Sabine had confirmed to Pheonix Squadron's leader when they first came aboard the Ghost that though her and Ezra's unit had lost a few of their raiding party on the Interdictor's surface, she and Ezra at least had escaped the battle unscathed. At that time had she been that distracted or had Ezra still been riding high on post battle nerve and adrenaline?

Ezra inhales and exhales slowly as Kanan begins his examination in earnest – mentally seeming to force the intensity of his own pain deep into the back of his mind even as Kanan becomes aware of it, "Hera… doesn't know at the moment. Neither does Sabine. And neither of them need to worry about it, given everything else that's going on." 'Typical. Just Typical.' There's nothing quite like Ezra's Bridger's particular brand of stoic and *stupid.*. Kanan can feel the teenager's muscles go taut with discomfort as he assesses his respiration rate, but despite that Ezra doesn't pull away from the probing of his master's fingers, just takes it with the calm of a person who knows that like it or not the checks they've been writing are finally due cashing.

"Ezra, if you're injured during a mission than you say so. That's rule one on day one and you know it." Kanan's tone is sharp - And his Padawan? Responds to the scold by patting the top of Kanan's hand. Like he's trying to console a particularly thick puppy.

"There was no point telling anyone about it, Kanan." He can hear the grimace in Ezra's voice as he half shrugs, "It's not like I've never dealt with cracked ribs before. Kriff it's practically like getting a cold for me. Yes, I hurt at the moment but I'm breathing without any problem. There's no sign that I'm coughing up blood. No bruises or abdominal swelling. I'm not an idiot - I'd have mentioned it if I thought I had a potential pneumothorax or something…" 

'Because of course drowning in your own blood *is* worth mentioning.' Kanan resists the urge to reevaluate his opinions on spanking. It's like the kid doesn't even listen to what comes out of his own mouth half of the time post mission and it's absolutely maddening. Force they've had this conversation - this argument- so many times before Kanan should probably start charging him for the privilege of continually pissing him off either in actual cash or over his damn knee.

Ezra's pulse, Kanan notes as he checks his pulses, is steady but definitely markedly elevated. Thank Force the rate is at least consistent...and that the teenager's respiration rate does seem to fall somewhere into 'normal' range. Which just means, in the broader scope of things their first step now is to actually manage Ezra's pain.

"Hey...easy. Easy…" The dark haired teenager eventually hisses when Kanan applies just a little more force to one rib fracture than is completely ignorable - his hand automatically comes up to tug his master's fingers away when the pressure of the examination becomes too much. "Like I already told you: it's fine. Just a set of clean breaks." His lips curve up in what's a clear facsimile of a smile. "All I need at this point is a bottle or two of something decently high proof to help me sleep through the next couple of nights."

"Not a chance in hell." The younger man shrugs, apparently completely unsurprised by his master's automatic reaction. Then again Ezra, in Kanan's experience so far, has never seemed particularly interested in alcohol - outside of for its medicinal use in medical emergencies. It's always been Kanan who, given his own little cadre of demons, has never seen any reason to tempt fate where the subject is concerned. 

'Though honestly, if we were any farther from Yavin right now than we actually are...' The suggestion of drink as a way to take the edge off of the kid's discomfort temporarily wouldn't be that bad of an idea under other circumstances. Kanan doesn't know without getting someone to check the kits for him how many oral or IV painkillers are left on the Ghost at the moment, but he's doubting there's much for quality or quantity. Which Ezra is no doubt more than aware of, judging by his decision to simply grin and silently bear at least four separate cracked ribs.

He's always been perversely proud of his pain tolerances, Kanan thinks, a little grumpily. 'Which are higher than average, yes, but not infallible kriff it.' No doubt after all these hours untreated the kid is feeling nauseous and partly or badly dehydrated, if only because no one's been aware enough of the issue to offer to bring him any kind of fluids.

Kanan's hand moves from the younger man's lower torso back up to cup the side of his exposed neck again, confirming with a touch what he'd already guessed. "You have a fever, Ezra. How high was it last time you checked it?"

"I do?" This time the link shows nothing but genuine surprise at the information. "I hadn't really noticed. I'm probably just a little dehydrated."

Kanan resists the urge to groan. This particular tendency of his Padawan's…a habit of benign self-neglect, drives Kanan absolutely mad, no doubt in because he's spent so long trying to break it. No made what he does though, the mindset seems as normal to his charge as breathing basically. It'd taken him awhile - far longer than it should have really, to observe him Padawan intently enough to begin to actually grasp exactly how Ezra's years of living on his own had effected some of his mindsets and lifestyle habits. After years living day by day -and often literally feast or famine, the teenager had acquired what Kanan could only charitably describe as 'non-traditional' philosophies about awkward little 'luxuries' like medical care, food and regular sleep.

In clearest example: Ezra can and has (though Kanan still winces to even think about it) put away two days worth of nutrition in under an hour, when the crew's access to food is under threat. Contrastingly his Padawan has fasted off of everything but electrolyte replacement supplements over the course of mission upon taking stock of their half destroyed supplies and deciding said choice was required to assure that Sabine and Hera would have enough until they could be rescued to eat. 

(Ezra had clearly seen the decision as honorable - Kanan suspects from what little the boy has said about his father over the years that it's something Ephraim Bridger would have or possibly had done at some point in his life. Sabine's chosen response to Ezra's choice had something less savory.) In truth Kanan sometimes thinks during Ezra's more frustrating escapades that the teenager has literally convinced himself that he's an intergalactic near–camel - a being capable of enduring indefinitely so long as he maintains adequate hydration and semi regular sleep.

Except Ezra isn't a camel. Or a droid. His body is no less susceptible to strain and stress than anyone else's. He's just more used to ignoring it than most people. His childhood had, out of sheer necessity, left him better at being temporarily deaf to physical warning signs than other people would regularly be.

Understanding that reality, of course, helps Kanan little in the more immediate here and now. "When was your last meal and full night's sleep, Ezra?" His voice is no nonsense – clearly expecting a prompt and blunt answer. Master tone as Hera refers to it. It earns him an immediate reply - though not exactly one that's reassuring.

"I had an MRE along with Sabine and the rest of the crew on the transport back here from Mandalore. I ate all the sides, but only about a quarter of the entree. Four or five bites in my mouth starting getting itchy."

Ah. Another probable food sensitivity that his Padawan had sensed and declined to mention to anyone else then. It wouldn't be the first time Ezra had been offered a meal by an ally or a stranger and then set aside said meal quietly aside with a gracious guest's sense of embarrassment. Ezra, despite what might have been expected upon first glance of him, had actually been started quite young on good company manners by his previously middle-class parents, and once the starvation risk faded he'd slowly if methodically started to recover many of them at levels that were both amusing and surprising. 

That didn't of course, change the fact that his Padawan had more food sensitivities than he let on - certainly more than Kanan had initially realized existed. At least until he and Hera had begun in earnest to try and put some weight on him... It had taken them over a year to get Ezra's ribs to stop showing no matter how often they fed him, and another eight months after that to get him healthy enough to actually start growing into his standard age range. Now Ezra's shooting up in inches every time they blink, or so HEra insists, but he's also got about as much bulk on him as your average string bean."

Ezra, unaware of any of these thoughts, sighs, and shifts yet again, "As for sleep…." He pauses, considers, and shrugs, "I don't know... I passed out for awhile while Chopper got us to Sabine and the rest of her people? After that, I took a stim before we departed her home world and another just before we exited hyperspace to deal with the Interdictor..."

"...Ezra." He growls out. A hand gruffly boxes the kid's left ear with his palm, not entirely gently. It's not hard enough to leave any lasting hurt behind of course, but enough to certainly sting. Granted said pain is likely minuscule compared to the rest that Ezra is feeling at present. Seventeen or seven, this kid clearly still needs a keeper. He's got a good heart...and non-existent self-protective instincts.

Ezra does not currently have - has never had if Kanan's more honest- a system that reacts well to coming down off stims.

"You're going to crash again – you know, that right? This time with broken ribs and nausea just to make the whole experience that much more miserable on top of everything else." The last time his Padawan had used stims to keep himself awake for the duration of a crisis he'd been tachycardic on and off for almost a week after - not to even mention his suddenly developed penchant toward agitated sleep walking.

"It was necessary…" Ezra's voice is firm, if not completely unapologetic. Kanan can both hear and imagine how the younger man's hand has risen to his forehead, flopping down palm faced upwards across his brow in a familiar gesture of building exhaustion. "Sabine and the others needed a situation briefing and I was what they had in terms of providing one- Chopper was focused on piloting the ship. The interdictor had to go. Plus to top it off I've been sleeping like kriff of an on for going on the last three weeks."

"Language, Kid…" 

The scolding is far more automatic than it is anything else at this point. It still earns him a moment's silence, before Ezra's body goes totally still, and then a low chuckle rises up in apparent amusement, "I just helped save everyone's asses, Kanan. Twice. I think I earned an hour's free swear pass. If it offends you ... " His hand moves in a vague sort of wave - toward the room's single exit apparently. "I'm sure Hera can use you somewhere else."

He has to remind himself not to smirk in response, even if that is his instinctive reaction to his Padawan's particular version of sarcasm. "Not likely, smart ass." He isn't doing anything in the immediate future but dragging this kid to a real bed and finding the supplies to wrap his fragile ribs. He gently flicks Ezra's forehead with one finger. "Also for the record: blowing up Interdictors, no matter how many times, does not exclude you from indefinite grounding or sanitation duty." Or from being forced to do training meditations until said kid's ass fell asleep. 

Mr. Fake-It-Till-You Break-It is headed for one hell of a rude awakening when they reach Yavin 4 if he actually thinks that he's going to be doing anything unsupervised for at least two weeks. To be fair, Kanan figures that's about how long it will take both for him to actually heal from his injuries and for Hera's temper to cool once word gets back to her about Ezra's current little lie of omission.

To be fair, he may be slightly overestimating how much swearing all of this is going to provoke in his lover in private. Hera's under a more than normal amount of stress as of late, just in general but she's also a fairly normal Twi'lek level of parent when it comes to preserving the health of her kids, and to dealing with their shenanigans. That is to say, he'd heard stories in the old days about clans from the old city ripping child-threatening droids apart right in their tanks.

Hera, like Sabine, had been absolutely livid the first time she'd realized that Ezra had been lying to her about when and how much he was eating during the aforementioned mission. Kanan had been a little surprised she hadn't responded to the truth by confining Ezra to his bed or the mess hall for a week, or forbidden him from flying until he regained all the weight he'd lost again.

'He drives her batty on his best days.' Kanan sympathizes with that fact almost better than anyone. Still…for all the challenges the kid presents, he also had his upsides. His worst traits also tend to be his best traits like any reasonably well-balance irreplaceable coin. If Hera's going to make Ezra's life hell in the near future...and she is while he's cheering her on from the sidelines, then she'll do so because while Ezra's nuts, Ezra's EZRA and she can't bear to lose him. Not anymore than any of them can currently.

True, things have been getting better just generally speaking, since that talk in the caves when they went to retrieve the Holocron, since Ezra's admissions after Tatooine, but they haven't bantered – haven't fully restored their old sympatico or balance since...well before Malachor really.

As it turns out, though while times does push everyone forward, and wounds tend to scar, scars are rarely more than cosmetic, in the long scheme of things. People, in general, stay largely who they always have been no matter how much they're temporarily battered or beaten down by trauma or tragedy. 

Ezra, for what it worth, is still maddeningly, exasperatingly Ezra, much the same way that he's always been. He's still reckless and young and prone to disregard his own well being.

He is, in short, still growing into who he's meant to be.

Well all right then: drop form and return to kriffing center. If they're dealing with an extinction burst of some of Ezra's more dangerous personal habits, then so may it be. He'd won that contest of wills the first time around and he's stubborn enough to know in round two that'll he'll outlast him yet again. 

So Ezra is backsliding at the moment. These things are bound to happen. He's certainly not the only one stretched thin by the year that has just past. Hera works too much and Sabine tends to repress her emotions if not given chances to vent. Kallus and Zeb and are both at a point of critical personal transition. At least he knows given those facts that he can and will be of some real use in the upcoming weeks to all of them.

Hell, right now, as strange as it sounds, he finds that he almost welcomes the idea of the challenge. Amazing as it is to think - they've made it through the latest crisis and they did so intact - well at least for the most part. As his own master had once told him, life is just the work of conquering the daily neccessary.

If their edges are all a little blurred at the moment by half healed war wounds and emotional turmoil, if some lines in the sand need to be redrawn after too long apart and too many personal sacrifices allowed to be offered unacknowledged...well then that is fine. That isn't an issue, that's just a typical Tuesday for pretty much all them. 

"...Kanan...?" Ezra, still in his chair, is speaking again, this time a little trepidatious, no doubt because he's now slightly terrified of Kanan's current expression. Then again his master probably has started …well… essentially grinning evilly down at him in the past couple of seconds.

The kid should be wary of said smile too, and not just that alone if he 's smart enough to remember what's even moderately good for him. Decisions after all have consequences. 

Ezra had lied to Sabine. He intentionally misled Hera about his health... He'd willingly taken stims even after swearing the last time around that he would do so, "Never. Karking. Ever. Again." Ezra's ass, in short, is both literal and metaphorical grass in the very, very near future. And when that future comes? He'll deserve every minute of what he has coming. Dance all you want to kiddo - you still get to pay the piper eventually.

Still, it won't be insurmountable. Hera'll cool down. Eventually. Paint supplies usually work as penance where Sabine's concerned. Despite the kid's occasional assertions prolonged meditation only causes temporary atrophy. Injuries heal, and they all have fresh start waiting for them on Yavin 4.

Kanan and Ezra, for better or worse, have all the time in the world in the days to come for any tear down or rebuilding. And both of them can and will live with that option over the alternative indefinitely.


End file.
